Every morning when we wake up, we get to choose our attitude. Any attitude we wish is available for the taking. We can put it on and wear it the entire day, and just like the right pair of shoes can change the outfit, the right attitude can change your experience.
Most days we wake up unaware of this choice. We wait and see how our jeans fit, how our hair looks, and what the weather is.
Good day, good attitude.
Bad day, bad attitude.
Average day, average attitude.
We allow our experience to dictate and determine our perspective. But within us is the power to change our entire experience, regardless of circumstances.
Today we have the extreme gift of waking up to a day when the preferred attitude is predetermined. It’s Thanksgiving, and what do we do on Thanksgiving besides eat a feast … we give thanks. Yes, we knew to wake up with an attitude of gratitude today. The calendar tells us today is the day to wake up to thanksgiving.
What would your life look like if you continually gave thanks? I mean in the presence of real life, less than perfect scenarios, would things begin to look and feel different if they were covered in the gravy of gratitude?
You know how butter makes everything taste better … or in my family it was bacon grease. That was my mama’s secret to everything … a little bit of bacon grease. Maybe you’re wondering where you buy bacon grease. Oh no honey, you don’t buy that, you save that. You drain it right out of your pan of bacon into a coffee can, and you spoon it out like gold.
Where do you get gratitude? Well I assure you it’s not on the shelves. You can’t buy it. You may think once you have this or that you would be truly grateful, but you’re wrong. You won’t. You’ll only want more or different.
Gratitude is drained off what you already have and stored within you. Like bacon grease, it comes from what you already have.
Melody Beattie said “Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend.”
I don’t know who you might be missing around the table this year, but I’m truly sorry. I’m deeply sorry for your loss. I’m sorry for the division. I’m sorry for the dysfunction. I’m sorry for the distance. For whatever has caused the empty seats around your table, I’m so sorry.
I’m missing important people too. I only have my husband today. No kids. No family. No friends. But God has given me so much bacon in my life already, that I have all this leftover bacon grease from what he has given me before, and now I can pour it out on what I do have and dang, it makes everything better!
Today, may you see what is here over what isn’t.
Unlock the fullness of life today with your thanksgiving. We truly have so much to be grateful for.
Let me throw my favorite absolutely overwhelming statistics at you, like I do every year on Thanksgiving:
If you have food in your refrigerator, clothes on your back, a roof over your head and a place to sleep, you are richer than 75% of the world. (Is that you? Do you have food in your refrigerator? Do you have clothes on your back? Do you have a roof over your head and a place to sleep? You are wildly rich, my sister!)
If you have any amount of money in the bank, in your purse, or even some spare change hidden in your couch cushions, you are among the top 8% of the world’s wealth. (Is that you too? You may not have a lot, but you have a little. You are ridiculously blessed, my friend!)
That’s me. I qualify for both of these categories. Isn’t that you too?
Girls, do you know what this means …. this means we are wildly rich and ridiculously blessed! Even in our current less than perfect life scenario, we have so much to be grateful for. Recognize it now. This is you. Wildly rich and ridiculously blessed.
That is your truth. Now, what will you do with it? Who will you thank?
Luke 17: 11-19 tells us a story of 10 men sick with leprosy who met Jesus. Jesus healed all 10 of them, but only 1 came back to thank him. Now Jesus was literally shocked by this and says “were not all 10 cleansed? Where are the other 9?” But to the 1 who returned to give thanks he said “rise and go; your faith has made you well.”
We gather today as the wildly rich and ridiculously blessed. The ones who have an abundance of proof in their lives of God’s goodness and grace. The ones who have been saved and redeemed. The ones who have been given more than we could ever deserve. The ones who have proven to be ungrateful in the past, caught up in the details, rushed through it and missed the overall truth in our lives … we are SO FORTUNATE.
We’re overflowing with bacon grease! Remains from all we have been given, and now what we have left is here to make everything better.
So here we are, among the masses who have received, but among the few who have returned to give thanks. Jesus, we’re here today to say thank you. We’ve come back to you in sheer gratitude for all you’ve done for us.
Thank you for our lives.
Thank you for our blessings that are in such great abundance and continual supply that we overlook them. We missed the fact that we were able to get out of bed today. We failed to show our gratitude for legs that walk, eyes that see and ears that hear. We failed to show our thanksgiving for the electricity that powered on, the water that flowed, the heat that warmed us, and the car that started. We overlooked the blessing of who we do have, thinking about who we don’t.
We missed many things already today, but we won’t miss it all.
We won’t go through this entire day oblivious to your goodness in our lives. We stop right here and gather as the wildly rich and ridiculously blessed to simply say, THANK YOU. We run back to the giver of life, we return to give you our praise.
Follow Pamela on Instagram – https://instagram.com/headmamapamela
Find out more about BIG Life – http://biglifehq.com